The Mets infirmary added a new member yesterday with Johan Santana complaining of elbow soreness. M-E-S-S… Mess, Mess, Mess… I can’t remember another team that has been this Kotchman-bitten. Now pitching for the New York Mets… Angel Pagan. He will also lead-off. I don’t think in spring training when the Mets promised no September collapse they anticipated a June collapse. Johan Santana may need surgery. Or maybe he can return. If you were the Mets, would you press your luck and hope for no whammy? I mean this is more common sense than ‘pert sense. Don’t do anything drastic until we hear more, but, as with anything Mets related this season, plan for the worse. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Jeff Francoeur – Ligament tear in his thumb. Frenchy’s toast? This free swinger says to ball gag that thought. Francoeur thinks he can continue to play. It may be financially motivated… Oh, who are we kidding? No one owns him.

Billy Wagner – Will stay with the Mets. Anyone wanna take bets that he’ll be examined by a doctor for an injury by next Thursday?

Chris Davis – I mentioned him briefly in the September call ups post-a-ma-thingie yesterday. He’ll get opportunities to be better than earlier in the year. Can Davis provide you with some pop? Um, yeah. He can hit 10 homers in September alone. Will he? Sorry, the Magic Eight Ball’s in the shop. He’s worth a flier if you need power. Hank Blalock’s value will probably take the biggest hit with the Davis recall, but Blalock was hurting his own value anyway.

Pablo Sandoval – Left yesterday’s game in the 3rd with a tight calf. If he were on the Mets, he’d be out for the year, which is to say he’s day-to-day.

Freddy Sanchez – Could be headed to the DL with a sore shoulder. The same sore shoulder I could’ve told the Giants front office about prior to them trading away Tim Alderson for Sanchez.

Ryan Howard – 2 HRs yesterday and 7 homers in the last ten games. The first homer was an opposite field shot where he was jammed and had no business hitting it out. Somewhere, Frank Howard is requesting a paternity test.

Jose Contreras – 2 2/3 IP, 6 unearned runs. Hey, Cliff, that’s not a ticker shock, this is a ticker shock. Contreras heads to the bullpen and Peavy will probably take his Saturday start.

Gordon Beckham – HR yesterday. He has been going through the usual rookie difficulties recently as he hits near .150 in the last week or so (<– now that’s some exact calculations!). But he still has a few homers this month and 8 on the year. I can’t wait to see where February Grey is going to rank him for 2010. If I had to take a guess, I’d say around 150 with a blurb talking about how Beckham can outperform that draft spot. Just as I was writing that, February Grey peeked his head in my office to say, “You don’t know me at all.”

Scott Baker – 7 IP, 1 ER. Now has a 12-7 record and hasn’t lost in almost two months though his ERA is at 4.47. That immediately sent me looking up one thing — Run Support. He has the 11th best in the majors with over 8 runs/game. Cust kayin’.

Jason Frasor – Hasn’t pitched in almost a week and is being bothered by shoulder tendinitis, which may speed up Downs’s save chances.

Ben Zobrist – Hit his 4th homer in the last six games. Kiss your imaginary girlfriend goodbye, cause I’m about to blow your mind. At 2nd base, Zobrist has been more valuable this year than Kinsler.

Jason Marquis – 8 IP, 1 ER. Sure, it was vs. the Giants, but Marquis has a 3.47 ERA on the year. Incredible.

Roy Halladay – 6 IP, 7 ER. After the game, Halladay was seen mumbling, “I coulda been in the NL.”

Randy Ruiz – Hit his 4th homer in 46 ABs since his call-up. He’ll be exploited at some point but until then he can give you some pop.

Jason Giambi – Giambi sat down with his family to discuss his future, but they were unable to come to a decision. Later that night, Giambi fell asleep on the couch. In his dreams, the dwarf hooker from the movie, Orphan, greeted him with a pamphlet. That pamphlet’s title, Choose Your Own Career Path. Inside, there were two options. 1. Retire 2. Before you fade into oblivion, latch onto a team and become a pinch hitter. Giambi woke in a sweat. His wife asked if he had to do number two and Giambi rapidly nodded, he did.

I mutter the same way when I read your box scores, sweet deadline acquisition Roy Halladay…

I’m glad you pointed out Howard’s absurd first inning dinger yesterday, Grey. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it. Guy is making his annual run a little early this year. He is consistantly one of the best players in all of baseball to have on your squad in H2H leagues because he has a ridiculous knack for kicking the crap out of the ball in late August and September.

Any Reds fans in the house seen Phillips swing in the last couple days? How bad’s his wrist?

love how all the experts must be back-pedalling on johan santana .
although the mets didn’t give up much to the twinkies , they got hood-winked .
suck on that financial obligation !

his fly-ball / HR #’s from his last year in minnesota showed that he was clearly an aging pitcher whose skills were declining .
he did last one more year longer than i thought he would .
and even though his prospects “appeared” bright , with the mets designing a stadium to suit his “strengths” , their master plan has clearly been exposed as flawed .

sorry mets fans … get used to years of dink-and-dunk baseball .
with no home run hitters on the horizon (delgado ?? … don’t make me laugh) , your future is resting on the speed prospects of jose sore- hammies reyes , who will be more than happy to swing for the fences . ha !

razzballers … question authority .
especially when ALL the experts are telling you the same thing .
listen to the free-thinkers .
take solace in the fact that , for the most part , johan is only one bad decision and that the ramifications (for you) will be over soon .

In consideration of the Mets front office and medical staff’s similarity to the average contestant of PYL (most of which just missed the Jeopardy cut), they will almost certainly risk falling victim to that sensation of animation Whammy. Dead-on obscure analogy Grey! From top to bottom, their management (general & field), players, shirtless Bernazard (dispite the Mets having embarassingly countless uniform options), Tribute to Dodger History Ballpark, etc., etc., etc., they’ve reached an absurd level of inneptitude!
Thoughts on risking a start of Arroyo in Milwaukee?

Don’t forget about Vincente Padilla on thursday! All the Mexican’s in LA are wearing bandalero’s for his start. He’s our savior apparently. I added him my 19 team league cause I dropped Penny. Choose your poison, mine’s tequila.

@Tarasco’s Secret Stash: @AL KOHOLIC: You are absolutely correct about Howard. He carried me to an H2H championship last year. AL – aren’t you glad that you didn’t trade Howard to me? I knew that this would happen, but I chickened out, just the same.

@Grey: hilarious stuff on J. Giambi. I miss John Sterling’s dinger calls for the Giambino. His new one for Texeira (“He’s sending a Tex Message) is hilarious.

I’m in a H2H death match. Would it be wise to start Peavy this Sat?

Thanks

Santana’s mediocre pitching the last several months makes sense now. Do you surmise that there is something not right with Doc Halladay? Two terrible starts in a row seem a bit suspicious.

@Grey: It’s Jered. Jeff ain’t getting anywhere near any of my teams. And I’m looking at the rest of the year – potential roster changes. It looks like Scherzer and Jered have hit a wall, and according to ESPN, Smoltz was tipping his pitches when he was playing for Boston. Carpenter and a couple of guys in the Cards bullpen pointed this out to him. His ratio was good, so it seems like he might have a pretty high upside the rest of the year.

@Paulie Allnuts: For an oft-fallible stats-focused perspective, Halladay’s just been getting unlucky recently. During his two terrible starts, he’s struck out 15 batters in 11 innings, while only walking 3. He’s also given up more groundballs than flyballs, which is usually a good way of preventing home runs. However, during that same period, about half of the balls that have been put in play against him have turned into home runs (vs. a league-average rate of ~30%) and 25% of his fly balls have turned into home runs (league-average is ~12%).

Sure, he was facing two strong offenses, so it’s to be expected that they’d be above-average at getting hits and hitting the ball out of the park. But at the same time, a lot of the hits he gave up were shallow singles to the outfield. With the lead-gloved trio of Snider, Lind, and especially Wells, it’s no surprise that many of the balls hit to them are landing for base hits.

@Paulie Allnuts: yes im glad now,but when your down 20 points with 45 games left a gamble cant hurt to much either way,now with 35 games left i would litterally need an era and whip in the 2.50-1.1 range from here on and continue the hot hitting to honestly make a big jump,this late in the year its really hard to move the era or whip very much,good luck to you 3 of you guys have a hell of a race going on there

@Grey: ,peavy,hamells,santana hurt for upcoming fantasy playoffs,halladay recent struggles,webb out all year,haren a turd in 2nd halves,billingsly and beckets last 2 stinkers,if king felix could get a few more wins he might be your cy younger,all the more reason (I WILL NOT DRAFT A PITCHER EARLY NEXT YEAR)